


Where Does the Time Go

by Chevalaile



Series: Where Does Continuum [1]
Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Astrid Delivers a Suprise, F/M, Fluff, Heartbreak, Hiccup is having a really bad day, Hurt/Comfort, My First AO3 Post, Now seemed as good a time as ever, This was sitting on my computer for years
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-20
Updated: 2019-04-20
Packaged: 2020-01-20 20:53:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18532969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chevalaile/pseuds/Chevalaile
Summary: Today was shaping up to be one of the worst days In Henry ‘Hiccup’ Haddock’s life. Could anything possibly happen now that could make it worse?





	Where Does the Time Go

He's late. Again. It was just one of those normal days where his alarm didn't go off, he slept in, couldn't find his tie and his worthless cat had escaped the apartment on his way out. He'd run down the hall yelling 'Toothless! Get back here right now!' until he'd cornered the feline. This in turn got him a lecture from the woman across the hall for waking the entire building, and he was late, very late.

But he could still make it. There was one last train that could get him to work if only a few minutes behind schedule. However, to make his day just that little bit better he found the lift broken and had in turn then needed to run down the six flights of stairs to the ground floor instead.

He rounded the last corner before the station and saw a platform thankfully void of train. All he needed now was to put that extra burst of speed on and he'd make it. Yet he hadn't factored into the equation that overnight a fine layer of ice had formed on the sidewalk. As soon as he heard the tell-tale sign of breaks from an approaching train he’d broken into a sprint and subsequently lost traction. His bad leg had given way, and he was down.

"Stupid leg, stupid prosthetic, stupid cat. I hate my life!" He yelled as he pulled himself up, but it was no use. As soon as he was stood upright, he got a clear view of his train disembarking, and with it, Henry 'Hiccup' Haddock's last chance.

He'd been late too many times now that he knew his boss, Gordon, wouldn't give him another chance. He knew he was lucky that he hadn’t been fired months ago, but the old man had a soft spot for him because they both shared the missing leg and could talk prosthetic stuff together. With a dejected sigh, Hiccup knew he'd really blown it this time.

Grudgingly he made the slow trek to the platform, figuring he may as well go in and get his things. Today was turning out to be the worst day of his life. 

While slowly and sadly making his way to the platform he realises it was only going to get worse from here. With the job market being as awful as it was, Hiccup couldn’t afford to keep his one-bedroom apartment in the city for much longer, and finding one that would allow him to keep his stupid cat was just a pipe dream.

He'd have to go home, to the tiny town he hated so much, to Berk. He'd have to face his father, who he was still not speaking to after their fight the night before he left. Hiccup couldn’t believe he was still holding the grudge, even after so much time had passed.

He'd left on bad terms with everyone he'd ever loved. His father, his friends, hell even his cousin. Especially his cousin.

Hiccup would return home to see all those faces that had encouraged him and partied with him, all the faces that had been so happy he was escaping the small town for the big city. They’d all wished him luck on his big break, and he'd let them down too.

Not that he'd spoken to any of them since the disaster of his going away party. That was the night his father had offhandedly mentioned that he was abandoning him just like his mother had, and Hiccup had lost it. He was already strained after hearing his cousin’s announcement that he was engaged to Astrid. Astrid being the only girl he had ever loved, his best friend, the girl he had hoped to marry himself one day, and who he’d learnt would now go on to marry his horrid cousin Scott.

At least he had his memories of her, of that one forbidden night in the back seat of his car after they'd giggled that they were both _way_ too drunk to drive home. It was his celebratory drinks, him finding out that he'd gotten the job in the big smoke. He still remembered that cold and wet winter night, as clear as the moon had shone down on them, as if he hadn't been drunk at all.

Five years. Five years had passed, and he hadn't spoken a word to any of them. They'd tried calling at first. His father left him countless voicemails. Tyrone and his twin sister Rachel sent him text messages begging him to come home, all saying that there was some kind of unfinished business he needed to attend to. As if they thought a threat would make him come home. And then there were the emails from his best friend Floyd, affectionately known as Fishlegs, that taunted him with his cowardice that he couldn’t bring himself to reply to. How could they still want him in their lives after what he'd said and done?

After a few years they'd all begun to stop. Rachel no longer messages him, Tyrone only the occasional 'Happy Birthday. Please come home', but his father still phoned every Sunday. Fishlegs still tries to keep him in the loop but with every email that pops into his inbox, Hiccup can tell that the blonde man is struggling to keep up the one-sided conversation. Too much time had passed, and Hiccup knew the damage was done. With malice in his heart, it didn't escape him that Astrid and her probably now husband had never tried to contact him at all, but he guessed his outburst had been aimed at the pair when he'd finally snapped.

Still hurting from his fall, he limps down the ramp leading to his platform and sits down on a planter box, immediately regretting it as the cold and wet of the fine snow seeps into his dress pants. As if nothing else could go wrong for him today.

But it's at that moment that a young woman pushing a pram accidentally runs over his toes. The icing on the cake of his worst day ever.

He cries out in shock at the same time as the woman swears and apologies begin spewing from her mouth.

"Oh my god, I'm so sorry sir, I didn't mean- it was an accident!" she begins, hands fluttering before she abruptly stops. Hiccup looks up to mutter 'it's fine' to the woman, but the words die on his tongue.

She’s looking at his leg, at the prosthetic he’s still self-conscious about, no matter how many years have passed since the accident.

"H-Henry?" she stutters, looking up from his leg and peering into his eyes.

"Astrid?" There’s no mistaking it. Green eyes meet blue ones, and identical smiles blossom on their faces.

"I can't believe it! What are you doing here?"

"I could say the same for you!"

"Are you living around here?"

"How have you been! I haven't seen you in so long! Since..."

And with that the questions die. Hiccup glances sheepishly down and spots the absence of a certain ring.

"What happened with you and Scott?" He spits his cousin’s name like its dirt, full of all the bitterness that he's felt for all these years.

"Oh, I uh, called off the engagement soon after you, uh," _left_ , it’s implied, and a shy blush covers her cheeks.

"I never really loved him, y'know? I didn't want to get married to him." Hiccup feels a little jump of joy at her words, the boyhood crush he'd always had on her soaring back to life. But he does pick up on the possible double meaning of her words. Could she really mean what he desperately hopes?

Those words whispered into each other’s ears on the back seat of his car, the happiest moment of his life, and from the way she moved below him and the noises that she'd made-

"But what are you doing here Astrid? What are you doing in the city?" The words tumble from his mouth before they've even registered in his brain. He opens his mouth to apologise but stops when he spots the cheeky grin she’s trying to hide.

"Well," she starts, leaning on the pram that Hiccup hasn't spared a second glance or thought, and suddenly she’s full of that familiar confident demeanour. "This one had to visit the doctor and get a cast for his broken arm." Hiccup bends down slowly and looks at the little boy for the first time. The small child is fast asleep in his pram, clutching a stuffed dragon toy with his left arm that’s encased in a bright blue cast.

"Clumsy as his father, he is." Astrid smiles fondly and sweeps her bangs from her eyes, and Hiccup is unbelievably glad that at least one thing hadn’t changed since he’d left. Astrid was a Mum now! When had that happened? And that little boy looked just like her, soft blonde hair and her nose to match.

"Oh, so you're with someone then?" He sadly gestures to the toddler as he speaks and Astrid laughs.

"Oh no, I haven't been with anyone since I broke it off with Scott, too busy being a Mum and all." It was then that the gears started to churn and work in Hiccup's mind. If she hadn't been with anyone since breaking up with Scott-

He glances back at the little boy, who couldn’t have been much older than four, and definitely doesn't see a trace of his cousin in the boy's features. And he knows Astrid. She would never leave the father of her child, unless-

"Wait, how did he break his arm?"

Clumsy as his father, that's what she'd said. Scott wasn't at all clumsy, and she obviously knew the father well. She didn’t- couldn’t possibly mean-

He however, had been teased mercilessly his entire child hood, his entire life for that matter, due to his clumsiness, hence the nickname ‘Hiccup’, and if his math was correct...

"My little boy decided that he wanted to fly like a dragon, so he leapt off the couch, caught his foot, and down he went." She laughs as she moves around the pram, fixing the blanket over the little boy to keep him warm. It was then that Hiccup notices the embroidered 'H' on the corner of the blanket.

"Is he, is he left handed, then? If, if he broke his left-"

"Yes Hiccup, just like his Daddy."

Hiccup was dumbfounded. She surely couldn't be saying what he thought she was saying.

"W-What's his name?" he stutters, making her laugh again, that tinkling noise that penetrates deep down into his very being. He hadn’t realised he had missed it so much. Astrid takes his hand and he notices he’s been shaking without his knowledge. With a caressing swipe over his knuckles, he stops shaking, and she leans against his body with a sigh.

"Named him after his father too, our little Hiccup Haddock."

**Author's Note:**

> ###### If you made it this far, I really appreciate you! I'd appreciate you even more if you'd leave me a comment or Kudos.  
>  Thanks again to the most wonderful friend I could ask for. If not for her, this would have sat in a cold lonely file on my computer for a further 4 years.
> 
> ###### 


End file.
